


I Just Want To See You Stare (As I Lay My Soul Bare For You)

by Lilsciencequeen



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Feels, I'm Sorry, Possible Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-11-12 23:11:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11172072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilsciencequeen/pseuds/Lilsciencequeen
Summary: “But I did it all for you! I built us a life together, I made you happy! I gave you the life you wanted. No regrets. And still… still you choose her!"//Or what if it hadn't been an LMD in 4x22?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Here Come The Vultures by Delain. Massive thank you to [Stjarna](http://archiveofourown.org/users/stjarna/pseuds/stjarna) for helping to beta this!
> 
> For more information and warnings about this fic, please see end notes.

“Beg me to let her live.”

Fits froze, unsure of what to do. Ophelia had Jemma, was going to kill Jemma if he wasn’t careful. He looked at Jemma, at the pain laced on her face. Her bottom lip was quivering and tears were clinging to her lashes. Fear was evident in her eyes, she seemed terrified.

Ophelia had Jemma, her arm wrapped around the biochemist’s waist and her other hand was on the handle of the screwdriver. The screwdriver that was buried in Jemma’s chest. He couldn’t image the pain she must be in. Pain she didn’t deserve. Pain that he was causing.

Fitz took one cautious step forward, hands raised showing that he meant no harm. “You don’t have to do this.”

Ophelia frowned, clearly disagreeing with Fitz. “But I do Leopold. She’s the one who ruined everything. She’s the one that destroyed the life we build!”

“But that wasn’t real,” Fitz countered, trying really hard to find the words that were best suited for this situation. The words that would cause the least amount of pain, the least amount of damage. “That was just… that was just the Framework.”

“But I did it all for you! I built us a life together, I made you  _ happy _ ! I gave you the life you wanted. No regrets. And still… still you choose her!” In a moment of anger, she pushed the screwdriver further into Jemma’s chest who gave out a cry of pain. It was truly heart wrenching, hearing her cry out like that, seeing her in pain. And he hated that it was his fault.

It was all his fault. The LMDs, the Framework; he had built it all to help, to protect his team, his friends, his family, and now, now it had done the opposite. The LMDs, the Framework, they had caused so much pain, so much death and it was all his fault.

Ophelia gave a mock pout. “Wrong answer.” Her hand twitched, and by the look of things she was threatening to push the tool in further, to cause more damage. Fitz, hating himself for doing it, couldn’t help but wonder how much damage had been done to Jemma already. What muscles had been destroyed, what veins had been nicked, whether her lungs had been pierced, whether her  _ heart _ had been damaged. There was a trickle of red on Jemma’s jumper, blood running down it, staining it.

“Then let Jemma go, and I’ll come with you. We can start again.”

“No!” Jemma cried out, in between ragged breaths. Her entire chest was on fire and she was terrified. She had faced death before, and she had always survived, come out on the other side alive but this time was different. She knew that this stand-off wasn’t going to end well for her. She knew she was going to die, that there was no way that Ophelia was going to let her live. But she wasn’t going to let her death be in vain. She wasn’t going to let Fitz be taken by her again, she wasn’t going to let Ophelia, AIDA, hurt him again. “You can’t. Please Fitz. You can’t.”

Fitz shook his head. “Jems, I can’t… I can’t let her hurt you.”

“And I can’t let her hurt  _ you _ !” Jemma countered. “You’re not… you’re not to blame Fitz. Please, you deserve better than her. You don’t deserve her…” She never got to finish her sentence as she gave out a cry of pure agony as Ophelia twisted the screwdriver, twisting her insides. She felt her legs give way under her but she never fell to the ground, the other woman’s hold on her too strong.

“Please,” Fitz pleaded. “Please let her go. She doesn’t… she doesn’t need to be involved. Please, just let her go.”

Ophelia didn’t seem to think this was an appropriate response, twisting the screwdriver even more. Jemma gave out a scream of pain, openly crying now, tears streaming down her face and splashing down onto the floor. Her face had paled and there was now more than a trickle of blood on Jemma’s jumper. He had to think of a different approach… he had to think of a different way to distract Ophelia, to get her away from Jemma.

Then it came to him; “The Darkhold!”

“No,” Jemma whispered. “No.”

“Coulson’s reading it, but we have it. I can take you to it.”

Ophelia seemed to consider this, then she dropped the hand that was holding the screwdriver but before Fitz could let out a breath of relief, she grabbed Jemma around the neck. “Please,” he tried again. “Please, just let Jemma go. Let Jemma go, and I’ll take you to the Darkhold. And we can leave. We can start again, just like you want.”

“Please, Fitz,” Jemma begged. “You don’t… you don’t have to do this.”

“I do,” he whispered back, hoping she would understand. “This is my fault, it’s all my fault.”

Jemma closed her eyes for a moment, fighting the tears, then she opened them and looked at him. The soft whiskey of her eyes was so full of pain, so full of hurt and so full of love. But he didn’t deserve it, he didn’t deserve her love, anyone’s love. Not after all he had done, not after all the hurt he had caused. “ _ I love you _ ,” she whispered.

Ophelia’s face contorted with rage and she let go of Jemma’s neck, leaving red marks on her neck and held her hand over Jemma’s chest.

“Please,” Fitz begged but it was too late.

Ophelia’s face warped into a mask of pure evil and she unleashed her powers, a never-ending stream of electricity at Jemma.

Fitz let out a scream, calling Jemma’s name, watching as the electricity danced across her chest. She was crying out in pain and it didn’t seem to end. Her cries seemed to go on forever but in reality it was only seconds until the electricity overwhelmed her, stopping her heart but still Ophelia continued her relentless assault.

Fitz couldn’t do anything but watch, tears streaming down his face. He had killed Jemma. She had died and it was all his fault.

Eventually, Ophelia let her go, her lifeless body dropping to the ground . “No,” Fitz whispered, dropping to his knees, and pulling Jemma into his lap. “No, c’mon Jems, please. Wake up.”

“She won’t.” Ophelia looked down at him. “It’s your fault Leopold.” But Fitz ignored her, and continued to stroke Jemma’s hair, pleading with her, begging her to wake up. Tears fell onto her face, mingling with her own tears and he couldn’t seem to draw his gaze away from her lifeless gaze.

“Jemma,” he whispered again, his voice, his very spirit broken, “please.”

Ophelia gave a sigh of annoyance and strode across the room, kneeling beside Fitz. She took his head in her hands, forcing him to look at her. “ _ You _ killed her Leopold. Do you want the rest of the team to suffer the same fate as her?” She moved his head so he was looking at Jemma, taking everything about her in; the emptiness of her eyes, the blood that was running down her chin and the screwdriver still sticking out of her chest. “Do you?” she asked.

“No,” he breathed. He couldn’t let anyone else he cared about suffer like Jemma had. “Please don’t… don’t hurt them.”

“Then where is it? The Darkhold.”

And Fitz told her, knowing that it was for the best. He felt Ophelia drop her grip on his face and then grab his arm, her grip tight. The nausea, the overwhelming feeling that came every time she used her powers overtook him as the both of them teleported to find Coulson.

Leaving Jemma lying there.


	2. Chapter 2

It had been a week since the Rider had destroyed Ophelia, accepting the offer from Coulson. The Darkhold had also been taken, no one knew where, but hopefully far enough away so as not to cause any more damage.

And Jemma…

Somehow, with luck, they had managed to save her, revive her. She had been rushed straight to surgery, the team not even thinking she would survive that. But she had. She had fought and she had pulled through. They had had to give her an artificial pacemaker, her heart weakened after all it had been subjected to, but she was alive and she was breathing and that was all that had mattered to the team.

Currently, she was still sleeping, as she had been for the past number of days. She had only awoken for brief periods of time, and anything she had said had been incoherent at the time, her words a slurred jumble.

But her team had hopes that it would be today she would awake properly, that they could start seeing what lasting damage may have occurred as a result of the attack.

Daisy hoped, she prayed that Jemma would be okay. It had been terrifying, finding out that Ophelia had tried to kill Jemma, very nearly succeeding at that. And seeing the screwdriver… It had made Daisy ill. She hadn’t seen the security footage, and she didn’t want to. Sighing, she leaned back in the chair and watched the gentle rise and fall of her friend’s chest when she sensed someone behind her, looking in through the window.

She turned around and saw him.

Fitz.

Once he realised Daisy had seen him, he turned and walked away.

Daisy stood up, almost knocking the plastic chair to the ground and chased after him. “Fitz.”

She caught him in the corridor and he turned to face her. He looked awful. He had massive black bags under his eyes, as though he hadn’t been sleeping. His cheeks were sunken, and his hair a mess.

“Jemma’s waking up today,” Daisy explained.

“I... I know…” he stuttered, seemingly uncomfortable about being put on the spot.

“She’ll be wanting to see you.”

Fitz frowned and shook his head. “No… no. Why would she?”

“Because she loves you. Why else would she have done everything she did? She loves you Fitz, and the Framework, what happened in there, that’s not going to change anything.”

“But I hurt her, I nearly killed her. I  _ wanted _ to kill her in there! I wanted to hurt, to  _ kill _ you, Jemma in there. I shouldn’t…”

“Do you want to hurt us now? Kill her now?”

Fitz shook his head. “No. No.”

“Then you’re not him. You’re not the Doctor. What happened in there… it wasn’t you. It was AIDA, she brainwashed you, she took your mind and she twisted it. Everything you did, it was because she wanted you to. She created that hell and forced you to do everything she wanted you to. It was AIDA who wanted Jemma dead, it was AIDA who tried to kill Jemma, it wasn’t you.”

Fitz ran his hands over his face. “I shouldn’t be here.”

“No, you’re right. You shouldn’t be here. You should be in there. With Jemma..” The answer from Daisy was stern. She shook her head, seeing that she wasn’t going to get through to Fitz that way. She needed a different approach. “It was you who helped me to understand that Hive, Lincoln’s death, that it wasn’t my fault. Without you, I couldn’t have done it. You helped me to come to terms with everything, with all that Hive did to me.”

“That was different,” he muttered under his breath.

“How?” Daisy asked. “How was that any different?”

Fitz shrugged, unable to answer.

“Exactly,” Daisy said, her tone softening. “Please Fitz. I know it’s hard. I  _ know _ , I just… I don’t want you to make the same mistakes as me.”

“It just hurts,” he whispered, breaking in front of her, closing his eyes and leaning against the wall before sliding down it. “It just hurts. I hear their screams, all the time. I can’t… I want it to stop.”

“I know.” She walked over and sat beside him, wrapping her arms around him, pulling him in close. “I know and I don’t wanna lie to you, I’m not going to lie to you. It’s gonna take time, and it won’t be easy, but locking everyone out, running away, that’ll only extend the pain, make it worse. And we don’t think any less of you Fitz because of what happened, that hasn’t changed our perspective on you. You’re still our family, we still love you.”

“Jemma,” he whispered. “Before… before Ophelia… she told me she loved me. How… how can she still love me?”

“Because you’re important to her. Fitz, she loves you because you’re her best friend. There’s no one else she would rather be with than you. And I know you don’t think you deserve her love, but right now, she’s still in medical and she’s about to wake up and she’s gonna be scared and in pain, and there’s only gonna be on person that she wants by her side.”

“Me?”

Daisy smiled at him and nodded. “Even if you have to take a step back, she won’t mind. She just doesn’t want to lose you Fitz. Please, don’t let that happen. You two, you have each other. Just please, don’t… don’t let that disappear.”

***

The world came back to her slowly, then all at once; bright white light flooded her vision and the incessant beeping of a heart monitor brought her back to reality. She tried to sit up in bed, but upon moving, she found a burning sensation rippling through her chest and she couldn’t help but cry out in pain.

“Hey,” a voice whispered from beside her, soft and reassuring. “You’re okay.”

She blinked a number of times, trying to adjust to the sudden brightness and found Fitz sitting in the chair next to her. “Fitz,” she whispered, her voice laced heavily with love.

“Hi,” he smiled at her, taking one of her hands in his own, and gently lifted it, and allowed his lips to dust her knuckles, placing a soft kiss there. “How you are feeling?”

“Sore. What… what happened?”

He shook his head, and rubbed circles into the back of her hand. “That doesn’t matter, not now anyway.”

She frowned in confusion, her forehead and nose scrunching. “Are you… are you okay?”

He looked down at her, and swallowed hard. He wanted to lie to her and tell her that he was okay, that everything was fine, but he couldn’t lie to her. Even in her slightly drugged state, she would see right through his lies so he shook his head. It was slow gesture, and he dropped his gaze, unable to meet her eyes any longer.

“Oh Fitz.” She said his name, but it wasn’t full of pity, and neither were her soft whiskey eyes. It made a change from how everyone else was looking at him. It was full of love and kindness. With some effort, and a few grunts of pain and tears, Jemma managed to sit up in bed. “I’m sorry. For everything that has happened to you. And I understand if you want to slow down, take a step back but please, please don’t lock me out. I can’t… I can’t lose you Fitz, not again.”

“I know,” he replied, letting out a soft breath. “I know Jems. That’s why I’ve talked to Coulson, he’s arranged a therapist. Someone I can talk to. But you won’t lose me, not now. Not ever.”

She gave a soft smile and there was a twinkle in her eyes.

“’Cause I love you Jemma. I love you so much. And I wanted to run, I wanted to leave, I thought that it was the best thing for you. To leave you behind but everything I tried… I couldn’t. I just couldn’t leave.” With the hand that wasn’t holding hers, he wiped at the tears that had formed, threatening to overspill. “I can’t imagine my life without you, I don’t want to imagine my life without. Jemma, I don’t want to live without you. I don’t think I could live without you.” He paused, taking a shaking breath, his voice breaking. And he dropped her hand, allowing it to fall back onto the bed.

“Fitz?” she asked, her voice laced with confusion. “What… what are you doing?”

He stood up from the plastic chair that he had been sitting in, and got down on one knee, pulling out a red velvet box from the pocket of his trousers. “I got this for you, I was going to propose to you… and I suppose, that maybe, in a sense this is a proposal. Maybe it’s not. But whatever it is, it’s a promise Jemma. It’s a promise that no matter what, I’m not going to hurt you again. I’m not going to leave you. I’m not going to let anything separate us, not again.”

He slid the ring onto her finger, simple silver of two strands, interwoven into a double helix. She lifted one hand, and cupped it against his cheek. She ran her thumb up and down, reassuring him. “I love you, and whether we get married tomorrow or in twenty years, I don’t care. Your happiness, it comes first. I don’t want to do anything that makes you uncomfortable… I want you to be happy and I promise you, I  _ swear _ to you that no matter what, I’ll be here for you, I’ll be right here by your side. Cause we’re going to do it, we’re going to get through this, like we’ve done everything else.”

“Together.”

She nodded, smiling at him. “Together.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't kill her, not really. Thanks so much for reading, hope you enjoyed and feel free to leave a comment, I would love to see what you thought!

**Author's Note:**

> I'M SO SO SO SORRY! I was just so curious to see what would happen if Jemma _hadn't_ been an LMD and it had been actual Jemma during the scene with Ophelia and Fitz. And there is a chapter two, that will be up soon. It has been written, I'm just going to wait to tease you all. Thanks for reading, I hope that you enjoyed!


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